This sounds... surprising. I thought we were collectively very good at logistics, and that transport was comparatively cheaper than most things. That's why chicken meat takes a round-trip from the US to China and back to the US, because the labor arbitrage saves more than the transport costs, right? That's back and forth between hemispheres!

The examples mentioned -- house framing, gutters -- are a specific category of large weirdly shaped objects. Chicken meat is, in comparison, a liquid. That might explain things.